


Feelings Like These

by viewfromthe34thfloor



Category: Pitch Perfect (2012)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viewfromthe34thfloor/pseuds/viewfromthe34thfloor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/785709">A State Like This.</a><br/>Chloe returns to New York and divulges the details of her night with Beca to her best friend, Aubrey. Whilst Chloe continues to be confused as to what this means for her friendship with Beca, her sexuality and her future, Aubrey finds herself feeling hurt that Chloe chose to experiment with her bi-curious side with Beca, and not her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feelings Like These

By the time that she arrived back at her apartment in New York, Chloe was hot, sweaty and exhausted. The flight from Atlanta back up to the city had been uneventful but she hadn’t slept well the night before, and even though she had showered at Beca’s place, she could feel the remnants of the alcohol binge seeping out of her pores. Despite knowing that Aubrey would not be sympathetic to her pounding head and unsettled stomach, Chloe could not have been happier to be home.

Bree managed to yank the front door open before she had even turned her keys in the lock. Chloe had to grin a little at her best friend’s exuberance, even though she knew that Aubrey was really just desperate to find out whether all was well with beloved Barden Bellas, and Beca. She didn’t mind when Aubrey grabbed her case and carried it into her bedroom for her, but Chloe’s sensitive head couldn’t quite deal with the relentless stream of questions that her best friend was firing at her.

“Whoa, whoa, Bree,” Chloe admonished the other girl. “Hello to you, too! Can you just let me get these horrible clothes off before giving me the Spanish inquisition?” Aubrey’s shoulders tensed and then relaxed as she took a deep breath and tried to slow down a little. Chloe shook her head - Bree’s new role as a project manager was a brilliant opportunity, but it made it hard for her to unwind at the end of the day. “Tell me about work whilst I change?”

Bree collapsed onto Chloe’s king-sized bed and hugged one of the many fluffy throw pillows that littered the surface. She immediately warmed to the topic of her job. “Work’s been manic, to be honest Chlo. They really need another office executive but recruitment in this city’s just a nightmare...” Aubrey trailed off as she watched Chloe rifle through her battered chest of drawers, looking for sweats and an oversized t-shirt. “It’s pretty hard trying to keep a whole department organised, but I’ve just started putting my foot down, tell them that they need to stick to our project plans.” Chloe rolled her eyes in an amused manner - she wasn’t surprised that Aubrey’s super-efficient planning was already forcing a floor full of experienced property developers into line with her exacting standards. _Micro-management is just part of who Aubrey is_ , Chloe thought.

As she peeled off the stiff jeans and crumpled shirt that she’d been wearing all day, Chloe drowned out Bree’s babbling about the frustrations of being a junior project planner in a firm where she could be doing so much more. She always missed Aubrey when they were apart - even if only for a few days - and this trip had been no exception. It was particularly hard to leave when it was so gloriously clear how happy Aubrey was now, five months after graduation. She’d had her long blond hair cut into a blunt, professional bob, and she was more toned than she’d ever been, due to her long runs through Central Park. Things going well at her work had obviously helped too, and Chloe couldn’t remember a time when they were at Barden that Bree had smiled more.

That wasn’t to say that everything was perfect - both girls agreed that their apartment was far too small, but the New York rents were ridiculous - and Chloe hated the nights when Bree would come home hours after her office had supposed closed, close to tears with the frustrations of commercial employment. It was all worth it though, Chloe thought, to see Aubrey so happy, so confident. Letting Beca take the reigns on the Barden Bella’s the year before had been so hard for her best friend, and things had been tough for those few weeks between winning the ICCA’s and graduation. Bree still hadn’t trusted Beca, despite how perfectly everything had gone at the national competition, and it wasn’t until all of the Bella’s had taken their trip across Europe that Bree warmed to the younger girl.

_But not enough that she was sympathetic when Beca dropped the ball with the Bella’s when Jesse cheated on her_ , Chloe admitted to herself, guiltily.

\--

After a change of clothes, half of an authentic New York pizza and a super-sized iced tea, Chloe had started to feel a little more like herself. Settled in her usual spot in the corner of the sofa, and with Aubrey perched on the other end, she began telling the other girl about her short trip to Barden.

“When I first got there it was awful, Bree. Beca’s apartment was such a mess, and she just looked terrible. She’s lost loads of weight, and it was obvious that she hasn’t been sleeping. Stacie told us things were bad before I went down there, but I hadn’t expected her to seem quite so... lost.” Chloe paused, her head full of just how concerned she’d been when she arrived at Beca’s front door. She’d never been a particularly motherly type, but seeing Beca looking so distressed had made her want to protect her from the rest of the world.

“She told me what Jesse did.” Here, Chloe shifted in her seat, still raging at the boy who had messed Beca around. “He waited until the day that she got back from Europe before telling her that he had something he needed to talk to her about. He said that she might hear some rumours around campus, some stuff about him and one of the reporters for the student TV station. He tried to convince her that the two of them had just grown close as they interned at the same production company, that they’d spent a few evenings watching box-sets of British comedy and had shared lunches a couple of times when the company was really busy.” Chloe frowned.  “I think Beca would have believed him too, if it wasn’t for the fact that she’d already seen that the girl had written a pretty in-depth expose of how Barden’s premier aca-couple were an aca-sham in the summer edition of the student paper. Excerpts of the messages that Jesse had been sending her, and some pretty damning pictures of him kissing her goodnight sealed his fate.”

Aubrey was unusually quiet as she sat listening to Chloe recounting the story. “What an absolute asshole,” she eventually commented. Bree and Beca had never been close, but she still hated to hear that any of the Bellas had been messed around by a boy. “I’ve got to say though,” she began, her voice a subtle warning, “this is exactly what I said would happen. This is why the Bellas had to swear the oath. When you let aca-boys and aca-girls start dating one another, hearts are **bound** to get broken, and then what happens? A girl sits at home crying her heart out into her Bella scarf and the boy heads out to the nearest karaoke bar to snare his next victim.” Aubrey’s rage was audible. “I knew this was going to happen, I absolutely knew it. And now the Bellas are leaderless and it’s eight weeks into term and I just don’t have time to sort any of this out!”

Chloe knew that Aubrey’s outburst was just the result of worry; about Beca, and about her, and about the future of the Bellas. “Oh Bree, don’t be silly,” she said. “Jesse’s a dick, but he would have been a dick, oath or no oath. It sucks that he screwed Beca over, it really does - but he’s the one who will have to live with that, not her, and not us.” Bree narrowed her eyes at Chloe. “And anyway, Beca seemed much better, by the time that I left. I think she just needed to get it out of her system.” Chloe paused, unsure of just how much to tell her best friend about what had happened between Beca and herself. “When I left this afternoon she was organising rehearsals with Amy and Stacie, and I think Jessica and Cynthia Rose were planning on going to flyer the dorms with audition invitations.” She smiled reassuringly.

“You don’t need to worry about the Bellas, Bree.”

\--

_Being home has it’s benefits_ , Chloe thought to herself the next morning as she stepped into the scaldingly hot shower. The pleasure quickly turned to pain, however, as the water rinsed down her back and immediately began to sting. Glancing over her shoulder, Chloe noticed the long, raised scratches down her back, showing up vivid red under the flowing water. She suddenly remembered the feeling of Beca clawing at her body with abandon as she’d lowered her mouth to Beca’s dripping cunt, a wash of arousal coming over her with the memory. The scratches made Chloe smile - physical proof that what had happened was real, that it hadn’t just been a strange dream of hers.

She was still smiling to herself as she climbed out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, twisting her long hair into a braid down over one shoulder. When she opened the bathroom door, she was surprised to see Aubrey waiting outside, anxiously clutching her own towel around her body.

“Sorry, Bree. I didn’t realise you were waiting to shower. I would have skipped singing the last verse of that new Rhianna song if I’d known.” Chloe’s good mood was infectious, and Aubrey couldn’t help but grin at her best friend, even if she was now running late for work.

“Ha, it sounded good, Chlo. It’s been a while since I’ve heard you really going for it in the shower in the morning! I take it you slept well?” Chloe smiled her answer, and moved to head through to her room to get dressed.

“Oh shit - just a minute Bree - I’ve left my contact lenses in there!” Chloe rushed into the bathroom, her hair flying out of the braid and her towel slipping down her torso. Aubrey turned around just in time to see Chloe grab her contact lense case and turn round to head out again, and that’s when she saw the livid claw marks down her best friend’s back.

“Chlo... What’s happened to your back?” Aubrey’s question was quiet, controlled, and it stopped Chloe immediately. She raised her hand to her back and traced one of the scratches across her shoulder blade.

“It’s nothing.”

Chloe could already tell that Bree wasn’t going to let this go, and she steeled herself for an intense interrogation. She didn’t want to tell Bree that she’d slept with Beca - not because she was worried, or ashamed - but just because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to share the experience yet. Chloe had barely processed it herself. For a split second, she considered lying, but then she glanced up and saw the genuine concern written across Aubrey’s face.

“I slept with Beca.”

\--

_When she first awoke on Saturday morning, Chloe couldn’t work out for the life of her where she was. The white cotton sheets looked vaguely familiar, but the room was completely foreign to her, and she couldn’t even remember how she’d got there. A quick peek under the covers confirmed what she already suspected - she was entirely naked underneath the sheets. She glanced around the room frantically, trying to locate her panties and t-shirt at the very least. That’s when Beca walked in, holding a large cup of coffee - and it all came flooding back._

_Chloe suddenly felt mortified about what had happened. She’d come to Barden to visit Beca, to try and cheer her up after her idiot boyfriend had screwed her over, and she’d ended up naked in her bed, having sex. (Her mind corrected her; having **really fucking hot sex** ). She couldn’t even look at Beca, and tried to sit up and pull the sheet around her at the same time, intending to protect her modesty._

_Beca snorted. “You are aware that I’ve already seen you naked, right Chlo?”_

_The humour in Beca’s voice immediately broke the tension in the room, and Chloe lifted her head and laughed. “Do you mean last night, or that time in the shower? Because I’m **still** pretty confident about all this, you know?” Chloe gestured at her body, just the contours visible under the bedsheets. “Please tell me that that cup of coffee is for me?”_

_Chloe couldn’t work out if she found being naked in Beca Mitchell’s bed more surreal or impressive. Her memories of the night before blurred together and she was gradually separating out the different scenes; how she’d drunkenly rescued Beca from the petite barmaid, dancing up close on the dancefloor, the feeling of Beca curled up around her in bed, the way that Beca had shushed her before they kissed, how she and Beca had fucked - an episode of hot, sweaty, mind-altering sex - just hours before. She couldn’t help but feel conflicted; they’d had really awesome sex - and in fact, Chloe wouldn’t mind a repeat performance - but she wasn’t **gay** , and neither was Beca, so where did that leave them?_

_She looked up at Beca, who was fiddling with her laptop, putting on some chilled out acoustic music. Chlo never would have predicted that she would be into that. The strangest thing was that despite the fact that they’d slept together, Chloe didn’t **feel** any differently. Sure, she was hungover and desperate for that cup of hot black coffee, but she didn’t feel like shit had changed between herself and Beca. They were just friends who had got trashed and felt emotionally connected, and the sex had just spawned from how close they were... Right?_

_Chloe sipped her coffee as Beca bustled about the room, eventually slowing down and collapsing her slim frame onto a wicker chair which was nestled next to the window. For some strange reason, Chloe was a little disappointed that the other girl hadn’t climbed back into the bed._

_“Are we going to talk about this, Beca?” She eventually asked, staring into her cup. She dreaded hearing B’s response, but the silence between them had been killing her._

_“This? You mean the fact that you and I had some pretty freaking awesome sex whilst inebriated last night?” Beca’s response was straight to the point and yet calculated, and hearing her say the words out loud made Chloe squirm. “I don’t know, do **you** want to talk about it Chlo?”_

_Chloe stumbled over her words, trying to verbalise her confusion. “I mean, we’re alright, aren’t we? You’re not mad at me, or anything?”_

_Beca laughed out loud. “Of course not! Come on Chlo, you and I have had this incredible sexual tension, right from our first meeting. You can’t deny that we’ve always been drawn to one another - are you really surprised that with emotions running high and the help of booze, we ended up fucking?”_

_Chloe was quiet for a moment, her brain whirring as she processed Beca’s words. **She thinks we’ve always had chemistry?** Her mind briefly flicked through a slideshow of memories of Beca - naked in the shower, being taken away in handcuffs after regionals, fighting with Aubrey about set choices - and tries to reject the notion. “But we... We’re just friends?”_

_Beca laughed again. “Of course we are! We’re great friends - we have common interests but we’re different too, we don’t overwhelm one another and sometimes I just **look** at you and I know what you’re thinking... You’re one of the closest friends I have.” Beca’s face softened for a moment. “You get me, and hanging out with you is so easy.”_

_Chloe looked straight into Beca’s eyes, and asked again; “And **this**?” she gestured around her, at the discarded clothes and mused bed covers and remnants of their night of passion._

_“Was just a one-off performance. We both needed someone, we trust one another, and I’ve always felt drawn to you, and I’d bet you felt the same way about me, so what’s the problem? Look, I’m not gay, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be sexually appreciative of someone of the same sex. And I’ve always secretly hoped that maybe you and I would get the chance to fool around one day - I felt like it was something that we needed to get out of our systems, you know?”_

_This whole conversation felt surreal to Chloe; she couldn’t get her head around the fact that not only had she slept with Beca, Beca had also more or less admitted to orchestrating the encounter. The thought of Beca thinking about her **like that**  was making her feel a little light-headed; it made the memory of the sex that much hotter, knowing that Beca really had wanted it, wanted her._

_“Wow. I just... I didn’t know, didn’t realise...” Chloe had no idea what to say, and it was this that made Beca shoot her a concerned glance._

_“Look, I’m sorry Chlo. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, let’s not talk about this anymore. I just wanted to let you know that it’s okay, you know? So what, we had sex! I’m still your friend, it doesn’t **change** anything - it was just a drunken occurrence, it’ll never happen again.” Beca trailed off, worry written all over her face._

_Chloe tried to put a brave face on things, despite feeling more than just a little sickened by Beca’s words. She forced a smile towards the other girl, trying to stop herself thinking about how sleeping with Beca had been the best - most exciting, satisfying, natural - thing she’d ever done, and now Beca had more or less labeled it ‘ **mistake** ’._

\--

Aubrey listened to Chloe’s recollection of what happened over the weekend with Beca with a rising sense of disbelief, the taste of her rage bitter on the back of her tongue. She stayed quiet long enough to hear Chloe try and explain her reluctance to tell Aubrey about the encounter - “I’m sorry Bree, I just didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t know what to say, I don’t even know how I feel about the whole thing. I mean, should I feel hurt, that Beca used me like that? Or flattered, that she was attracted to me?” - before she couldn’t bite back her emotions any longer.

“Stop it, Chloe, just stop it. I don’t want to hear any more about why you thought it was okay to lie to me - to me, your best friend! - about something this fucking huge!”

Bree’s outburst silenced Chloe all at once. “How could you? How could you sit there last night, telling me that everything’s going to be fine with the Bellas, that Beca’s getting her shit together again - when less than twenty-four hours before, you’d been fucking her?! How can I believe a single thing you’ve said, Chloe?!”

Her rage was volcanic now - her harsh words erupting from somewhere deep within her. “I’m supposed to be your **best friend** , Chloe, and you couldn’t even be bothered to tell me about this? After all the stuff we’ve been through, all the things you know about me that I have never told another soul, ever - you flat out lied to me about **this**?”

Chloe’s face was frozen, her pain visible in the hold of her shoulders and the tremble of her chin. Bree’s words kept coming. “I never trusted that girl, never trusted her. Now I know why - she was always leering at you, finding some reason to stay behind after practices, talking to you about her mixes or whatever - all because she wanted to get into your fucking panties! And you let her! I’ve told you so many times Chloe, that you can’t be so nice to everyone. There are so many fucking weirdos out there, people who just want to mess you around and screw you over, and you just can’t see it.”

Aubrey shook her head, still mad. “I always knew that she wanted you to herself. She never liked me, because I was your best friend, I looked out for you. I bet she was absolutely ecstatic when you turned up on her doorstep like a fucking sap, there to fucking try and cheer her up! Bet she thought it was her lucky day!”

Bree’s attack on Beca seemed to shock Chloe out of her paralysis. “For christs sake, Aubrey, get a grip! Look, I know that you’re mad that something really big happened to me and I didn’t immediately come and tell you - and for that, I am really sorry. But look, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole thing - in fact, I’m still not - and I didn’t want to have to think about what it could mean for me... As for Beca, you **need** to stop trying to villainize her! Yes, she hit on me - but I reciprocated, I wanted it. **I wanted her.** So just stop, okay? Stop trying to make this about you. I love you, but you’re being absolutely ridiculous.”

Chloe’s response - angry and heated and directed entirely at her - knocked Aubrey for six. She saw her best friend staring at her with open hostility, and couldn’t help but choke back a sob.

“You’re my _best friend_ , Chloe. I don’t understand... It just doesn’t make sense to me...” Aubrey’s sentence trailed off.

“It was just a thing that happened, Bree. It was just a thing.” Chloe tried to comfort her friend, tried to make it better somehow. Her lack of understanding fed into Aubrey’s fragile emotional state, and all at once, Aubrey descended into full blown sobs. She felt so devastated, so betrayed; _if Chloe had been curious about another girl, about what it would be like to sleep with a girl_ , she reasoned to herself, _then surely it should have been me? After all, we’re best friends._ Aubrey felt like her heart was slowly breaking as she met Chloe’s sad eyes.

“If it was _just a thing_ , Chlo, then why wasn’t **this**...” Aubrey dropped the towel that she’d had wrapped around her, revealing her naked body, “Why wasn’t this good enough for you?”

\--

Aubrey pulled into the underground car park which served her office, and swung into the nearest available space. Usually she was desperate to get from her car to her desk as quickly as possible, but today she couldn’t find the motivation to go and organise everyone else’s crap. For once, she felt like her own life was far too disjointed to sit in a large room and tell everyone else how they were fucking up the company’s projects.

She never usually did anything without thinking it through, weighing up the consequences, working out the pros and cons - but Aubrey wasn’t in the right headspace to be rational. She quickly sent off a text to her boss, pleading off work due to a personal emergency ( _the benefit of being so responsible_ , she thought, _was that people didn’t question you when you bullshitted them_ ) and restarted her car engine.

\--

The drive from New York to Atlanta gave Aubrey more than enough time to question what she was doing. Her brain ran through the same cycle of thoughts and emotions every couple of hours: she’d stop at a red light and suddenly be hit by the absolute stupidity of what she was doing, and resolve to turn around at the next interstate. Then she’d sit back and the thoughts of Beca fucking her best friend would start to run through her head... Chloe gasping as Beca sucked on her nipples. Chloe arching her back as Beca slowly forced her fingers into her dripping cunt. Chloe screaming as she came, with Beca’s tongue between her legs and her hands grasping at her thighs. Aubrey’s rage would peak again, and she’d resolve to find out what the hell Beca was playing at, what the hell Beca thought she was doing messing around with her _best friend_. And so Bree would decide, once again, to carry on to Atlanta and tell Beca to leave Chloe the hell alone.

\--

If she allowed herself to sit back and think about the situation with a little less emotion, Aubrey could admit that maybe, just maybe, she was a little bit jealous. Not of Beca or of Chloe per se, but just of the fact that they had fulfilled one of those college bucket list fantasies; a little experimentation with someone of the same sex. Aubrey always kind of expected that she’d meet someone at college who made her feel alive; someone who pushed her and enraged her and who she’d have a worryingly close relationship with. A girl who was like her and unlike her at the same time, the kind of relationship that made everyone around her concerned. Aubrey had never been in lust - that uncontrollable, unstoppable force which she’d seen so many of her friends compelled to bow down to - and she’d always imagined that college was the opportunity to let herself experience **everything**.

But **everything** had changed when she’d met Chloe. The two girls had become friends from their first meeting, whilst everyone else was fighting over boys and solos and whose psychology tutor was the hottest. Aubrey couldn’t quite put her finger on why she and Chloe had bonded; it was something to do with common interests and shared backgrounds and an understanding of one another, but at the same time, their connection went so deep that it often felt unexplainable. When she thought about Chloe, Aubrey placed her somewhere on the line between sibling and soulmate. She and Chloe disagreed - and often they’d fight like sisters, bitching at one another about clothes borrowed and then accidentally shrunk - but Aubrey also knew that for her whole life, if she needed her, Chloe would be there. _There’s a permanency to our friendship_ , Aubrey thought. _There’s no way I can imagine my life without her._

Meeting Chloe had had a huge impact on Aubrey. Chloe had an ability to keep her on the right path whilst also pointing out the view, to calm Bree down when everything was going to shit. And if she was being honest with herself, maybe she had considered, once or twice, what would happen if she and Chloe were to sleep together. Just as an experience, an experiment. Something they could do once and then keep filed in their memories. Aubrey had never considered sleeping with any other girls once she met Chloe, and because Chlo had never once shown any interest in her, sexually, the idea of sleeping with a girl was pushed to the very back of her mind. Chloe _just got her_ , and if Chloe didn’t feel the need to sleep with a girl, then Aubrey figured that she didn’t need to either.

And they’d gone through four years of college as best friends, as two girls who knew everything about each other and who could tell one another anything - except Aubrey had never mentioned how she always expected to experiment, sexually, at college. She could guess that if she had told Chloe, she would have made something happen, somehow orchestrated an encounter between them - but Aubrey didn’t want to be a pity fuck, or something which came about just because Chloe wanted to make Aubrey happy. She wanted to sleep with a girl who wanted to sleep with her, having sex to see what it was like, whether they were missing anything. She wanted Chloe to feel like she did; unsure and confused and yet wanting, blurring the line between friendship and love and attraction until one day they just fell into bed together.

That day never happened between Aubrey and Chloe, and yet Chloe had slept with Beca. Aubrey’s disappointment, her anger, surfaced again.

_What the hell is wrong with me?_

\--

After a 16 hour drive, with just a two hour nap at a service station somewhere in Virginia, Aubrey drove onto the Barden campus. Even at 1 in the morning, running on espresso shots and a sense of righteousness that had faded the closer she got to Atlanta, driving around the familiar places still felt as natural as breathing. She couldn’t help but see the ghosts of her four years here on every corner, memories of classes and parties, a cappella and choreography, her and Chloe - and the emotional turbulence of the previous morning all came rushing back. Sat in her car, parked in the deserted lot outside the Bellas’ practise hall, Aubrey let the tears wash over her once again.

\--

When Beca’s door buzzer started ringing at 2 in the morning, her first instinct was just to ignore it. She pulled her duvet higher over her head, buried her face in her pillow and tried, hopelessly, to recall the dream that she’d been having. _It was something to do with a hammock on a sandy beach_ , she reminded herself. _You had a waiter bringing you a  long icy drink and there was some freaking awesome music playing somewhere down the boardwalk_. The buzzing continued. After the fourth ring, Beca reluctantly accepted that this was not some drunk students trying to get into the building, that she’d have to get out of her warm, cozy bed and answer the door.

There was no response when Beca picked up the entry phone and said hello, but she pushed the unlock button anyway, hoping against hope that it was just someone who got drunk and forgot their keys. She’d gone to the kitchen to grab a glass of water to take back to bed when she heard the beat on the door, and her heart sank. The only person who’d have the audacity to turn up at her door at 2 in the morning was Jesse, and if this was him, it was incredibly unlikely he’d be sober. Beca put her ‘ _I am not taking any of your fucking shit_ ’ face on, preparing to deal with her drunken ex-boyfriend and yanked open the door.

\--

Saying that Beca was shocked to see Aubrey standing outside her door was a huge understatement, but almost more surprising was how unkempt the usually pristine girl looked. Aubrey’s blond hair was frizzy and sticking out on one side of her head from where she’d slept in her car, and there were mascara trails down her face from all the crying. The grey dress she’d chosen to wear to work the day before had not travelled well, and there were coffee stains down the arm of her blazer. Her eyes were slightly crazed from the length of time she’d been driving, and her mouth was set into a flat line that attested to the way she was feeling. Her dishevelled state meant that it took Beca a second to recognise her. It was the second after that, however - the moment that Aubrey looked up and met her eyes - that Beca felt her stomach turn to acid, her pulse thunder in her throat.

“Aubrey? What’s happened?”

Aubrey looked so spaced out, so not with it, that Beca worried that she was about to pass out. She grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the apartment, a thousand and one worst case scenarios going through her head; Chloe in a traffic accident, Chloe robbed at gunpoint, Chloe trapped in a building collapse... Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. She found a dictionary of words suddenly on the tip of her tongue, an iceberg of things she never said, never knew she needed to say. She grabbed Aubrey by the shoulders, pulled her into a hug, hard, demanding.

“Aubrey. You need to tell me what’s happened.” Beca kept her voice level, controlled.

She pulled back, looked up into Aubrey’s bloodshot eyes again. Her whole body was screaming of her anguish, her desperate struggle to keep it all together. Beca wanted to shout at her, demand she tell her why on earth she’d turned up at her door at 2 in the morning, whether Chloe was okay, but she could tell that one harsh word and Aubrey would just collapse into sobs. Aubrey’s arms were still around her neck, clinging to her, and she felt as her body shifted somewhat, stiffening - and how Aubrey broke their gaze, her eyes falling to Beca’s mouth. The way that the other girl was staring at her lips made Beca feel self conscious and she paused, biting her lip to stop herself from muttering a stream of obscenities.

\--

For Aubrey, that action was the last straw. Feeling detached from the whole situation, her body reacted instinctively to the girl looking up at her with concern in her eyes, chewing on one corner of her lower lip. Everything else fell away; Aubrey kissed her.

\--

Beca hadn’t realised what was happening until it was too late; Aubrey’s lips - soft, gentle - were already pressed to hers and there was nowhere she could go. Completely blindsided, she stood frozen in place for somewhere between a second and an eternity, until Aubrey felt her panic and pulled back. Beca saw Aubrey’s mortification spread across her face as she realised that her kiss had been entirely unexpected, unwanted. “I’m so sorry...” Aubrey whispered and then she crumpled, and the sobs that she’d been holding back escaping from deep in her chest.

Unable to speak, or to comprehend what had just happened, Beca led the hysterical girl to her bed, where Aubrey curled up into a ball and Beca covered her with a blanket as she shook with the force of her tears. Beca sat next to her on the bed, gently stroking Aubrey’s hair until she stopped sobbing. Heart in her throat, Beca asked one more time:

“Is Chloe okay?”

And Aubrey’s nod of the head reassured her, right up until her sobs resumed, even more violent than they had had been before. Exhaustion, heartache and disappointment all took their toll on Aubrey’s body, and she cried herself to sleep.

\--

Aubrey slept for 13 hours, still wearing the clothes that she’d put on back in her apartment in New York. When she woke, there was an impossibly small moment before the events of the night before came rushing back, but the sight of her phone, flashing with 16 missed calls, brought her back to reality.

As the memory of arriving at Beca’s door replayed itself through her head, Aubrey found her emotions careening between absolutely devastated and completely numb. She could remember how Beca looked at her after she’d tried to kiss her - the confusion and revulsion in her eyes - and Aubrey knew she’d never felt as entirely rejected, as unwanted as she had right then. She couldn’t believe that this was the girl that her best friend had chosen to sleep with, the person she’d chosen before she chose Aubrey.

When Beca came into the bedroom half an hour later, Aubrey had managed to smooth her hair down and remove the remnants of her make-up. She still looked awful, but there was at least a semblance of the usual Aubrey Posen that Beca knew, rather than the broken women from the night before.

“Hi.” Beca called softly, standing in the doorway.

“Hey...” Aubrey tried to keep her voice strong.

“Aubrey; I know you probably want to pretend that last night didn’t happen and just fuck right back off to New York right now, but we need to talk.”

Beca’s quiet confidence destabilized Aubrey, making her feel small and weak all over again. “If you say so,” she responded.

“I called Chloe after you fell asleep. She was really worried about you, A. She said that you went out to work and then didn’t come home, that you guys had a fight but that it wasn’t a big deal, that you just wanted some space. 900 miles is more than just a little space, Aubrey.” Beca’s words were light, but her tone was carefully controlled. Aubrey wondered just how much Chloe had told her about their fight.

“And then you turn up here, an absolute state. You worried me too, A. I mean, I know we’re not exactly super close, but... what the hell were you thinking? Driving all that way here, and then... Kissing me? What did you think was going to happen?” There was no venom in Beca’s words, just a sense of disbelief, a rejection of the tension that Aubrey had felt the night before. Aubrey stayed quiet until it was clear that Beca expected an answer.

“Look, Chloe told me about what happened between you and her. About you guys having sex, I mean.” Aubrey felt like she had to say the words, a small step to letting go of the pain she was feeling. “I don’t know what happened to me. One minute Chlo was telling me that the two of you had gotten drunk and ended up in bed together, and the next minute my brain was telling me that you were planning on taking my best friend away from me, that Chloe must love you more than she loves me, and I couldn’t just do nothing!”

Aubrey took a deep breath. “But I didn’t come here with the intention of kissing you, you know? I came here to tell you to back off, to tell you that she’s my best friend and that she doesn’t _want_ you, you’re not important to her.” Aubrey could feel the vitriol splashing all over her words. “I came here because if Chloe was going to sleep with any girl, it should have been me! I was her best friend, I’d looked after her and cared for her for years before you even came to Barden - so what r _ight do you think you have_ to just come along and drag my _best friend_ into your bed?”

Beca stared at Aubrey, surprised by the strength of her words, the anger in her tone. “Aubrey, are you trying to tell me that you’re in love with Chloe? That you think I’m muscling in on your girl, as it were? Because, as I remember it, _you_ kissed _me_ last night.”

Aubrey shook her head insistently. “I’m not in love with Chloe. This isn’t about _feelings_ , or at least, it’s not about mine, anyway. She’s my best friend, the first person I turn to in **any** situation - and I can’t understand why she’d sleep with you, and I certainly don’t know why she’d then keep that information from me!”

Running through her memory, Aubrey thought back to all of the times that Chloe had sloped into their shared dorm room, hungover and smelling of sex, still wearing the clothes from the night before. She’d climb into bed with Aubrey and recount her night, replaying the details of whichever boy she’d gone home with, how it had made her feel. The two girls would be laid with bodies touching as Chloe recounted the inevitable frustrations of whichever boy she’d pinned her hopes on most recently, and Aubrey would remind her she deserved the very best. For Chloe, Aubrey had a one strike policy - just one fuck-up was enough for Aubrey to decide that a boy wasn’t good enough for her best friend - and she’d always base her first judgement on what Chloe told her about their night together.

“When she didn’t tell me that she’d slept with you, it felt like she wanted to hide it from me, she didn’t want me to know that you two had something, had something that she and I didn’t have.” Aubrey trailed off, realising quite how true that statement was. “And _that scared me_. Chloe means so much to me, and thinking that she might have _something_ with you, something that I can’t compete with... It tipped me over the edge. I figured that it must be something to do with you, you must have _influenced_ her somehow. And I told myself that if I came here, if I saw you, kissed you - maybe I could understand it.”

Beca listened to Aubrey’s confession and began to see just how scared, how insecure she was feeling. “Aubrey. I can’t... I don’t know how to put your mind at rest. You **are** Chloe’s best friend, and you mean the world to her; that is never going to change. Not if Chloe sleeps with a boy, or a girl, or me. She loves you.” She took a long breath before ploughing on, summoning the words that were pooling at the base on her throat.

“She doesn’t _love_ me. Chloe and I, we just had this chemistry, this sexual tension which always simmered under the surface, which we glossed over for all of last year. And it shouldn’t be surprising that after a night of alcohol and high emotions and us just being there together that we’d end up having sex. It was hot, you know? It was hot to have something happen that I’d thought about but never expected would ever actually come about, it was hot to have Chloe respond to me, it was hot to know that she thought I was hot too.”

Aubrey looked pained at Beca’s description of how she felt towards Chloe. The younger girl’s words made her realise that she’d been so, so wrong to come here. The sexual tension that Beca spoke of in relation to Chloe was nothing like how Aubrey felt towards her, it was nothing like any feeling that Aubrey had ever had before, ever. She felt even more lonely, even more alienated by this connection that Beca had with her best friend.

“But Aubrey, what you need to know is that what happened between Chloe and I was a one time thing. It was something which was always going to happen at some point, an inevitability, but it’s done now. That sexual tension - we’ve dealt with it. It overwhelmed us and we fucked and now we can get on with our lives.” Beca swallowed the bile threatening to spill into her mouth as she made a final, damning statement. “Chloe and I are just friends - there won’t be a repeat of what happened.”

Aubrey relaxed as she heard this. She wasn’t okay with everything which had happened, but Beca’s promise that she and Chloe had gotten whatever was between them out of their systems reassured her. “I’m sorry about last night, Beca.” She offered a weak smile. “It must have been something of a surprise to you, me rocking up in the middle of the night, looking like a homeless person.”

Beca snorted. “A homeless person with expensive tastes... Dry-cleaning that dress you’re wearing probably costs as much as my weekly food shop. It’s good to see that you’re taking full advantage of the New York shopping district.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes, noting the long slung jeans and racer back vest that Beca had slung on. “Well, it’s not surprising to see that you’re still going for the ‘teenage boy’ look with your wardrobe, Beca. You know, you’d look far better in a pencil skirt and heels - and then you wouldn’t look quite as short, either.”

The bluntness of Aubrey’s criticism relieved Beca a little, revealing that Aubrey hadn’t changed her opinion of her too much.

“Thanks for the advice,” she replied sarcastically. “I’m totally surprised that I didn’t kiss you back last night, when you give compliments like that.”

\--

Aubrey was in the shower and Beca was going through her wardrobe to see if there was anything she could lend to the other girl to wear on her drive back to New York when her phone buzzed. Beca opened the text message casually, expecting a light-hearted greeting from her dad, or rehearsal arrangement news from one of the Bellas. When Chloe’s picture lit up her phone, she read the message immediately. The words which meandered down the screen had Beca’s heart hammering as she took them in, a sudden weight in her chest and ache in her bones. She finished reading the message, turned off her phone and collapsed onto her bed, her head in her hands.

“ _Beca, ever since we end up in bed together the other night, you have consistently been at the forefront of my mind. I know you said that that night was just a one-off thing, a once and never again occurrence - and I understand - but i really need to see you again, need to talk to you. I’m feeling so overwhelmed when I think about what happened with us - and nothing has ever felt as right as that night did. Beca, I’m just not sure how to deal with **feelings like these**. Love, your Chloe xx_ ”

“Shit.”

**Author's Note:**

> The third (and most likely final) part of this fic series is currently being written. It has a working title of _A Love Like Theirs_ and will most likely be complete in a week or so. 
> 
> Once again, thanks to Acey / [glasscanonlyspill](http://glasscanonlyspill.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing and putting up with my rambles.


End file.
